Rental agreements, whereby the owner of an asset agrees to allow another party temporary use of an asset in return for a payment, are commonly used on a variety of assets, such as accommodation, transport equipment and tools. In order for an asset to be rented, an agreement must be formed and a payment made between the renter and the owner of the asset. This can be arranged directly between the owner of the asset and the renter or via a third party, such as a broker. It is becoming increasingly common for such transactions to take place online via peer-to-peer marketplaces such as Airbnb™.
In existing rental procedures, the renter must come to an agreement with the asset owner or broker and must then pay the asset owner or broker. As such, all details pertaining to the asset rental are only recorded by interested parties in the transaction, and disagreements may be difficult to settle, relying on disputed facts.
Furthermore, matters become more complicated when several brokers advertise the same asset for rental. In this case, different brokers may agree to conflicting rental agreements with different potential renters. For example, a first broker may agree to rent an apartment to a first potential renter at the same time as a second broker agrees to rent the same apartment to a second renter.
In order to reduce the possibility of conflicting rental agreement, the owner of the asset may be required to communicate with a number of brokers in order to keep each broker updated with the agreements of the other brokers. This can be a time consuming and expensive process which may still lead to errors.